


shape of heart, shape of human

by guttersvoice



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cognitive Dissonance, Dissociation, Gen, Jossed, M/M, bunch of weird references to things, post-s2 written pre-s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guttersvoice/pseuds/guttersvoice
Summary: Or: WEAVING A STORY 2: Oral stage“Shiro,” his voice cracks. Why is he shaking? Shiro won’t even be gone a year. Fists curl tight in the back of Shiro’s uniform, holding him in place. “Please. I can’t lose you again.”“Again?” Shiro asks. Since they met they’ve rarely been apart for more than a few days.The gold sky flares cold blue, shadows stark and black and streaming behind them, and Shiro is alight and alight and a light.And Keith is somewhere dark and alone and curled up in a tight ball, knees pulled to his chest, face pressed to his knees. White-knuckled clutching to something Shiro can’t quite make out.





	shape of heart, shape of human

**Author's Note:**

> man i started this like the day after s2 dropped and then i forgot about it for a chunk of time. its obviously been proven wrong now but i kinda like the writing so like, whatever i gave it a half-ending and here it is 
> 
> this is mostly referencing some evangelion stuff actually but theres a couple other things too iirc. like at least one jojo reference? idk

The sky is gold and edged with pink clouds, and there are arms wrapped around Shiro’s torso. Dark hair tickles against his face as he hugs Keith back and smiles into the top of his head.

“Please come back,” Keith begs, and his voice is desperate; broken. Shiro doesn't understand. It's only a few months - he'll be back on Earth in less than a year.

Keith moves away a little, but doesn't let go. His hair falls into his face, obscuring him from Shiro’s view at this angle. There’s a wet patch on the front of Shiro’s jacket, and it’s only at this point that he realises the other boy is trembling.

“Please,” he says again, miserable. The uniform fits him strangely; too-stiff and the wrong colour. Orange never suited him. Keith is supposed to wear red. Shiro is pretty sure of that one. “Please, we need you. Come back.”

Shiro doesn't know how to respond.

One wall of the endless corridor they're alone in is all glass: through it, the bright gold sky is interrupted by a pale curve led by something that flashes silver when it's not black against the sunset. He recognises himself.

The gravity at Cape Canaveral tilts.

Shiro smiles into the communicator screen.

“I miss you,” he opens the conversation as cheerfully as he can. Keeps the smile on while his greeting traverses for minutes between earth and whatever point in space he’s at. Somewhere a little way past Jupiter’s orbit, although the planet itself is on the other side of the sun right now.

There must be a storm where Keith is, or a storm caught in the expanse of void between them, because the feed is half-filled with static and buzzing to the point that Shiro can't quite make out his face. But it's him; the shapes and colours - red, of course red, that’s Keith’s colour, after all - are unmistakable to Shiro at least.

“I miss you so much,” Keith replies eventually, and his voice is unwarped by interference, clear as if he were in the room, but raw and rough, and Shiro understands that it's not the feed flickering that's making Keith shake so violently. Like he's sobbing. “Please come back.”

Shiro keeps his smile stubbornly in place. It’s important to let Keith see that he’s fine.

“I’ve barely been gone two months,” he points out. The screen flickers.

The ship is so quiet. None of the equipment is humming or beeping. Shiro can’t remember if any of it should be.

Shiro can’t remember the last time he heard Matt and Sam’s voices.

the cold floor of the cells the hot blood on his knuckles the ringing in his ears the ringing in his ears

Keith clings to him, face buried in Shiro’s chest. Orange doesn’t suit him. Wouldn’t red be so much better?

“Shiro,” his voice cracks. Why is he shaking? Shiro won’t even be gone a year. Fists curl tight in the back of Shiro’s uniform, holding him in place. “Please. I can’t lose you again.”

“Again?” Shiro asks. Since they met they’ve rarely been apart for more than a few days.

The gold sky flares cold blue, shadows stark and black and streaming behind them, and Shiro is alight and alight and a light.

And Keith is somewhere dark and alone and curled up in a tight ball, knees pulled to his chest, face pressed to his knees. White-knuckled clutching to something Shiro can’t quite make out.

He can’t reach him. Keith is right there, and Shiro can see him, but the angle is all wrong and his body won’t let him move to hold him.

He doesn’t know where his body is, actually.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s face-down in the arena, cheekbone bruising but it’s nothing compared to the itching throb across his nose as yesterday’s injury tries to heal.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s laughing and laughing and bright in the sky, seeing through eyes far bigger than his own.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s sat on a train at sunset, alone, with himself.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s weightless in the void, edged in bright lavender that never encroaches on the surrounding black, deafened by the lowest rumble of a purr.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s bleeding out, sure to die with the loss of a limb.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s desperately, achingly in love.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s cracking under the pressure.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s flying.

Shiro opens his eyes and he’s stood on the bridge, back straight, shoulders tense and heavy, helmet under his arm. Allura has her back to him. Wispy strands hang loose from her bun, pale against her neck.

“Keith,” she says, and Shiro’s head whips around, but they’re alone, surrounded only by the endless map of the universe that cuts right through them as it slowly rotates. “You can’t stay in there forever.”

Shiro feels nauseous as the castle tips, like the artificial gravity was turned off.

He stares up at an alien sky, all greens and yellows. The glare from the twin suns reflecting off the sea laid out in front of him makes it hard to see anything else, but he knows the three figures stood reaching out to him even if their faces are obscured by helmets.

Their mouths move, but he can barely hear what they’re saying, like they're muffled through sheets of thick glass. He thinks he can almost read their lips, though.

“We need you,”

“Someone has to lead us,”

“It’ll be okay, Keith,”

And he realises they’re not reaching for him at all, but past him. Through him.

Shiro turns, and Keith is curled up in the dark outline of his shadow. The soft light that surrounds him in this enclosed space casts his skin in soft purple. He looks ethereal and miserable and alone. Shiro moves to hold him, to rest hands on his shoulders, to comfort him somehow, and dissolves into stardust.

He’s in the void and he is the void. He's every atom caught in a string between two stars. He's a bright flare of blue light streaming from his own back.

He hears that deep, constant rumble of a purr again and understands that it’s coming from inside him. He shifts, lying in a more comfortable position, and all of the voices he's heard - three far away and one intimately close - shout in surprise.

The laugh of the Black Lion is a familiar feeling, but like this, it feels like it's coming from Shiro. The contradictory emotion confuses him enough that he disconnects again: he's handing in his formal application for the Kerberos mission, knowing that they'll already have a pilot in mind, that he's too young, that it’s just a way to hopefully, hopefully get them to consider him next time they send a crew into space. He's pinning a writhing mass of slime to the floor of the arena, ignoring the tentacles its forming to try to pull him off, plunging his gleaming new hand into its core. He's curled up on the cold floor of his cell, scratching sickly where flesh meets metal as if he could remove it, too empty of fluid and humanity to cry any more. He's holding Keith close, sending him off on a mission with Hunk, so desperately proud of the other boy’s self-acceptance.

He clings to that last moment, draws it out. They'd drawn it out at the time, too, clinging to each other like they wouldn’t see each other again, and - now that Shiro knows that this is a memory to relive in softer, muted colours - now that he can take his time to assess the moment, brief as it was - now, he can be sure - as he’d pulled away, Keith’s lips had brushed against his jaw.

Shiro holds that instant in place.

Every wavering atom of his existence, spread out as they are, condensed into body-shape in memory only, is warm with affection and care.

Somewhere, Keith is aware of this. Shiro feels, rather than sees him sit up, looking around for something that isn’t anywhere he can see.

“Shiro?”

His voice is so close, wavering and unsure but hopeful where it had been broken, and he’s holding the black bayard.

“Your bayard.” Keith corrects him, and then blinks in surprise, eyebrows drawing together like he hadn’t meant to speak.

Shiro can’t hold onto himself - the surprise echoed from Keith’s expression is enough to loosen his tenuous grasp, and he’s not there any more.

He’s saying goodbye to Keith before the Kerberos mission, and lips are just barely brushing against his jaw. He’s waking up in a shack in the desert and it’s familiar and safe. He's waking up in a cell and it's frightening and cold and full of muttering in languages he can't possibly begin to comprehend. He’s waking up in a shack in the desert and it’s jarring and different and full of unfamiliar voices speaking a language he actually knows for once. He's waking up in a cell and is resigned to how familiar this is. He’s being kicked awake to fight. He’s being kicked awake to be used. He’s being put to sleep and shaking apart at the seams. He’s being torn into pieces and reconstructed. He’s dying. He’s dying. He’s dying.

His blood thrums with open sky more than in any spaceflight he ever trained for, every movement coming so naturally that it’s almost like he’s moving himself, rather than piloting a lion made of an alien metal and even larger than the rocket he breached the atmosphere in.

Oh.

A brief glimpse of something like understanding.

Shiro is not the Black Lion. He remembers this much. Against their greatest enemy, though, for a moment, to protect what is important, Shiro was the Black Lion and the Black Lion was Shiro, and they forgot how to be separate. They were one, and together they were part of a whole, and neither had felt so alive than in that moment Voltron’s sword blazed bright against the dark of the void.

He had forgotten until now. They both had.

Hard to untangle, though, now. Is this childhood on Earth the Black Lion’s? Did Shiro sail unformed through space for countless aeons before his parent-creator-paladin-brother found him?

Yes, and yes, and somehow no, perhaps. This has never happened to them. They were one and now they are one.

Keith is sitting in the cockpit. His eyes are closed, head tipped back against the seat. Trying to find them.

No - trying to bond with the Black Lion. Someone has to lead Voltron. He knows he's not Shiro (they laugh, to themselves, without meaning to) but Shiro asked him to.

The Black Lion remembers this. Dull, throbbing pain in their side. Not as bad as some of the injuries she'd sustained in the arena, but without medical attention, she had known there was no hope.

In the pilot’s seat, Keith doubles over, clutching at his own side, but his eyes are wide open and fixed on the screen in front of him, and his expression is open, eyes bright with something like hope.

“Shiro?” he asks aloud, teeth gritted through pain. A buzz of activity in his helmet, but it's ignored. “Shiro, is that you?”

It's Keith calling his name that solidifies the tiniest margin of separation between them.

Shiro isn't there, though, as much as he is. He can't pull himself together enough to remember what having his own body felt like.

But there's light in Keith’s eyes that he wants to reach out and touch.

The memory of a wound gives way to the memory of soft lips against his jaw, and Keith’s shoulders relax a little as the pain fades.

“Shiro?” he says again. Quieter this time, less sure. Shiro doesn't know how to say: yes, it's me, I'm here. The Black Lion can communicate with her paladin, but it's hard to remember how to be a lion when half of you is just a boy.

Shiro tries to grasp at that knowledge, forgets the shape of a boy in his need to comfort another, and the Black Lion purrs, reassuring, in Keith’s head and around his heart.

“I don’t understand,” he says aloud, and they know it's because their bond with him is not as strong as the Red Lion’s. The Black Lion is endlessly patient, but Shirogane Takashi is not. He’s frustrated, disappointed in himself for not being able to do something as simple as resonating his quintessence with that of his paladin, even if it’s Red’s paladin really. He’s done it before, after all, if only briefly, to save -

The cognitive dissonance hits hard when the memory clashes with his self awareness. No, that was her; he was on the floor, ready to die.

And then he’s gone again, can’t remember how to be a boy or a lion, and the lights die in the cockpit, and Keith is left alone again while the lines between them blur.

But Keith is smart, and resourceful, and they’d managed to get his attention, at least.

It takes him a while

        - Shiro and the Lion don’t know it, but the moment Keith left the cockpit, the other paladins tackled him and forced him to rest in his own bed at least for an hour. He complained for thirty minutes and then slept for seventeen unbroken hours, and afterwards was hungry enough to agree to sit down and eat something before returning to the lion hangars    -

                           but he settles back into the seat of the Red Lion, his bond with her strong and unbroken. To the Black Lion, it seems like bare moments later. To Shiro it feels like a thousand years of fragmented emotions and memories stabbing through his skull while he floats in the void. A difference in lifespan changes your perspective: it helps them begin to find themselves, though. Just a little, bit by bit - but understanding each other a little better has the opposite effect. Shiro glimpses the long ribbon of time stretched out behind the Black Lion, and then drowns in it for a while, learns things a human couldn’t.

But Keith and the Red Lion are awake and open, and every part of the-Black-Lion-and-Shiro recognises this immediately. The urge to connect, to open themselves up and trust implicitly is an old one for every part of them. The last Black Paladin had been so close to Red’s, too, so of course their Lions have so easy a link.

Shiro had never considered it before. He recognises the remembered face of the first Red Paladin, but it’s impossible to tell which part of the recognition belongs to which part of them.

His connection to Keith is different to that of the old Black and Red Paladins - the Black Lion echoes both the newer feelings and those ancient, long-lost ones, and they begin to seep into one another.

Shiro won’t let them. Grips tight to that feeling that’s his alone. Remembers dark hair brushing his cheek and warm lips against his jaw, relives the instances again and again and again, until he feels Keith’s blush from the Red Lion.

He hadn’t meant to embarrass Keith with that - hadn’t meant to broadcast that across the link between lions, but it isn’t like he has even half of the natural control over his quintessence that he ought to.

Although, he realises, that natural control comes from owning a body to shape your consciousness to. Like surface tension holding water in a cup.

He’d been able to clear his mind to connect so easily before, but now he’s spilled everywhere it’s easier to understand how it had been so much more difficult for the others to do so when they’d first tried.

The others, whose consciousnesses are here, too, brushing hesitantly against the Black Lion, and she’s open for them, welcomes in her pride, while Shiro stumbles and closes himself off as much as he can. The others are here too, and that’s why Keith’s face is as red as his Lion. He hadn’t meant to. He just wanted to keep that feeling for himself, as part of himself and no one else. He had only meant to remember it.

It’s hard for the Black Lion to reassure her precious paladin, to envelop him in confidence that blots out the shame when they’re so intermingled that it’s her shame, too. He nudges her towards that feeling of pride - as in, their family, but also the emotion they elicit in the both of them - instead, and they are able to calm. The line between them is blurred, but the edges of them blur with the others, too, black giving way for warm tendrils of colour reaching for them.

Pride swells and gives way to relief, for both of them.

No matter what happens from here on out, whether they’re a permanent amalgamation of paladin and lion or not, they still have the others. The Black Lion at least is well-adjusted to communicating wordlessly; Shiro purrs as she relaxes into the mindlink. Intimate enough to know each other’s presences, not quite enough to form Voltron impromptu within the castle.

Not that they could, without a paladin sat in the cockpit. And Shiro’s not sat in the cockpit, he’s everywhere and nowhere all at once, infused into every atom that makes up the Black Lion and at the same time lost somewhere on that astral plane she took him so before.

They can’t convey all of that through a mindlink primarily based on feelings and projected awareness, though.

But the mindlink is there, and already they’ve shared the bones of a memory that could never be the Black Lion’s. Even inadvertently they’ve shown that Shiro is here; that he’s alive, and even if not entirely present he is at least safe.

There’s a push of a thoughtform from the Green Lion. Or the Green Paladin. Those two are very separate entities, but Shiro and the Black Lion recognise both in such similar ways that it’s hard to tell.

It’s an instant of fresh, humid air and that heavy weightlessness that comes with floating on water. It’s the moment of self-doubt lifting with a sense of familiarity bringing security.

It’s a memory of Shiro, and it’s more grounding than he could have anticipated. He remembers the shape of himself, from before he and the Black Lion had even met. She remembers his shape, too. It’s brief, but he’s there, not solid but present and separate. A wobbly line drawn between them. It’s thin, and there’s gaps where their similarities meet, but it’s a start.

Excitement echoes between the other lions and their paladins. It’s a start.

The clamour fills Shiro and the Black Lion the same way, and the separation between them, so fragile already, starts to fray. Their excitement becomes everyone’s excitement becomes each other’s, and they blur again.

Not that easy, of course.

There’s discussion between the paladins, keyed-up and rapid-fire, but Shiro can’t keep track because the first time he saw Zarkon was on his knees and bleeding, a distant blur watching the rise of a Champion - but the first time he saw Zarkon was awakening under his touch, new to existence and ready to fly.

And then disconnect, and Shiro and the Black Lion are the Black Lion and Shiro, and they can’t feel any of the others, and he’s suspended weightless and he’s improbably interwoven alloys, and he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone and he’s here and everywhere and every atom of them resonates with each other.

But there’s a possible future, he knows now, and they know now, and they know now - he can come back, fall into the arms of the family who found him and can find him again.


End file.
